Building Men for Others

Back in 2002, I was watching the HBO Sports Magazine 'Real Sports' with Bryant Gumbel. I watched a segment about coaching high school football that changed the way I coached and the way I approached my personal and professional lives.

The video featured a high school football coach by the name of Joe Ehrmann, who was a former DT for the Baltimore Colts back in the 70's. What he preached to his players was something unique and different...to love each other. Yes, football players loving one another!

The premise is to build a community of men that care for and take care of each other. These are words I preach on a daily basis to our young men. I talk to them about false masculinity and what really matters in life, Faith, Family, School and Football.

You folks will hear us making the following exchange: "What's the coaches job?" The players respond, "To love us." I will ask, "What's the player's job?" And the response is, "To love each other!" And they get it!

Not once has anybody trashed talked to another player, been disrespectful to a fellow player or coach or used profanity. On the contrary, our players play hard, hit hard, encourage and motivate each other all under the name of love.

Our success will not be measured in wins and losses this year. Our success will be measured 5 to 10 years after our young men graduate. The measure is what kind of loving son they become, what kind of loving husband and father they become and how productive a member of society they become. That is my goal for our young men.

I used this Building Men for Others in 2003 when I was the Head JV Coach at Bishop's and it worked. The players took care of each other, they supported each other, they built a community and more important, they loved each other!

I joined Coach Martinez at Southwest High School in 2006. Southwest HS is located 1 mile north of Mexico and it had many of the problems associated with many inner city schools. (Drugs, gangs, lack of attendance and productivity at school, single parent homes, etc.) When I introduced 'Building Men for Others' to the players, some looked at me weird. But the more I spoke about it, the more the players understood. Even the most hard core gangster on my team separated himself from the gang element and came up to me and said, "Coach, I love you. Thank you for loving me."

Needless to say, I knew I was on the right path. I have attached the video of that show to this blog. Please take a look for yourself and watch the video.

URL=http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=e70dfa5d0fbdeef32102